Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Windows 7 – the news keeps on coming in!

• How low can you go? What is the minimum hardware requirement for Windows 7? SO far the record is a Pentium II with a 266 MHz CPU, 96MB of memory, and a 4MB graphics card.
• Nick Hodge is in charge of getting 58 palettes of HP Netbooks preloaded with Windows 7 for Tech Ed 2009 delegates! – i could go – but I’m going sailing instead!
• Susan Bradley has webcasts on using the XP mode in Win7
• Upgrade and retail pricing was announced for Win7 for USA and Australia this week.
  

Smith: Unum's two million dollar man

Recently I found that Unum, a Fortune 500 company that provides long term and short term disability, group life and long term care insurance for more than 100,000 companies, uses OneNote 2007!  Looks like they save over $2 million by switching to OneNote by going to a paperless system.

Creating, Saving, Sharing Themes in Windows 7. An in depth how to from the Engineering Windows 7 blog.

From Sarah Arnold: Opportunity to win a Windows 7 Laptop if you are a Microsoft Partner

The Worldwide Windows Marketing Team has launched a Windows 7 partner video contest and I would love to see Australian Partners involved.

To get involved all you need to do is be a Microsoft Partner, create one or many 2-3 minutes video(s) and post it to DigitalForumTV.comfor voting by anyone with a Live ID.

Microsoft Mapping Roadshow – Melb, Syd, Brisbane - 9-12 June

Places are limited so if you do wish to register please do so ASAP at https://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=324573&linvitation

SBS2008

We have our new server commissioned and running.

Hardware Specs

• ASUS TS700-E4/RX8 Intel Core Xeon Server
• 2 x Intel Quad Core Xeon 5405 1.6GHz CPU
• ASUS Server Mainboard
• 32GB of ECC Fully Buffered DDRII RAM (4 x 8GB)
• 12 DIMM slots support Quad channel DDR2 533/667 FBD up to 48GB
• ASUS Pedestal Server Chassis with 730W Power Supply
• 2 x 300GB Seagate SAS Hard Drives
• 2 x 1TB Seagate Drives 24/7
• up to 8 hot-swap SAS or SATAII HDDs
• Onboard RAID 0, 1, 1E
• Hardware RAID 5 via optional ZCR RAID card
• 2 PCI-X 133/100 MHz (one support ZCR RAID card)
• 2 PCI-E x 8 slots
• 1 PCI-E x 16 (x8 link)
• ASUS 16x DVD-RW Drive
• Dual Intel Gigabit LAN
• ASUS ASWM 2.0 & Server Anti-virus License
• 3 Years Hardware Warranty
• Powerware 5110/1500VA UPS

We are running SBS2008 which works very nicely. We found that there is a dearth of how to’s out there on the web in relation to a number of specific configuration issues we came across but we seem to have solved most of them now. We did use Philip’s excellent SBS 2008 setup list as a starting point. We also found lots of good helpful stuff on his website. we were both doing similar migrations from SBS 2003. In our case we didn't use any migration tools but manually moved data and mail. I actually copied every users mail out of exchange into a PST file, and then re-imported them into the new box from the PST file. The main reason for this was to avoid bringing over corrupted profiles and other bits and pieces from the old server. The value of this paying off already with quick profile load times and no errors.

Here are some useful SBS2008 articles from Philip:

There’s been a lot of things happening this week. Not the least being the possibility of a swine flu pandemic. Read on for a scientific explanation of swine flu.

General Microsoft News

• Amit has written article explaining How to Download Images from an Outlook Email.Tip – one of the options works for PowerPoint also.
• Sarah Perez lets us know that PhotoZoom Becomes DeepZoomPix. This is now using Silverlight. I believe this technology has also changed inside PhotoSynth in order to allow Mac users better access to the technology.
• She also lets us know how to Twitter in Excel – how to actually run twitter in side an Excel client.
• Windows 7 Beta keys are still available. The Release Candidate itself is due shortly. From the Windows Team Blog:

I’m pleased to share that the RC is on track for April 30th for  download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th. Link for rest of article.

Live Mesh announces an update affecting all platforms

Windows Vista SP2 hits the streets today - Sarah has a full list of the enhancements and fixes in Vista SP2

Tony Morgan posts a though provoking piece with 10 reasons why he doesn’t like most Christians. I would agree with them all.

Rodney Olsen posted this cool video about technological and futuristic trends. I have added it here also.